Biogeographical karyotypic variation of Rhinophylla fischerae (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae) suggests the occurrence of cryptic species

The genus Rhinophylla Peters, 1865 (Carolliinae: Phyllostomidae) com- prises three species: R. pumilio Peters, 1865, R. fi scherae Carter, 1966 and R. alethina Handley, 1966. Only the fi rst two species have been cytogenetically studied to date. Previous studies on specimens of Rhinophylla fi scherae from two populations from East of Andes (Colombia) showed the karyotype with 2n=34 and FN=56. In this pa- per, we report the results of cytogenetic analysis of six specimens of Rhinophylla fi scherae from Brazil. Probably chromosomal differences can be found among the populations because of the geographic distance. Metaphase chromosomes were ob- tained in the fi eld by direct extraction of bone marrow. The metaphases were ana- lyzed by conventional staining, G- and C-banding, NOR-staining and FISH with telo- meric probes. Rhinophylla fi scherae has 2n=38 and Fundamental Number FN=68, with small amounts of constitutive heterochromatin in the centromeric regions of the chromosomes and the long arm of pair 16. Fluorescence in situ hybridization using telomeric probes did not show any interstitial sequences. Hybridization with human 18S and 28S rDNA probes and silver staining revealed the presence of Nucleolar Organizer Regions at the long arms of pairs 16 and 18. The pattern of G-banding showed that this population had a huge chromosome variation compared with pre- vious studies on specimens of Rhinophylla fi scherae. The chromosomal differences among populations that have been morphologically classifi ed as R. fi suggest that this species should be considered a cryptic species complex, and that the popu- lations from different geographical regions analyzed to date should be considered species of this complex, where the chromosomal rearrangements had key importance.